


My Jacket Looks Pretty Good On You

by TrashT



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spoilers for literally the whole movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-07 12:23:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5456429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashT/pseuds/TrashT
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What is it with Star Wars and only realising that it's love when they're (probably) dead?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wait For It

**Author's Note:**

> This might be a little slow updating during christmas. But I am too excited by these kids to wait.

Poe's lost track of how long he's been waiting by the side of Finn's medbay bed. He marks the time by the muted calls of his comm, buzzing away, everyone frantic with the energy and hope of a free galaxy, everyone hoping to talk to him, the hero of the Resistance. But he's not the hero. He spends all his time sitting, watching the real hero's chest rhythmically rise and fall. Everyone is calling to Poe, encouraging him to fly again, and whenever he manages to drag himself to the mess hall, hundreds of voices call out to him but it's too noisy, the different languages meshing together is blaring cacophony of screams a _nd shouts and the Tai-Fighter is going down and all he can see and feel is hot sand-_ Poe tells himself that he hides in Finn's med room from all his responsibilities. It's better than admitting that all he truly wants if for Finn to wake up. 

He knows it's stupid to hope that Finn's going to recover from taking a friggin' lightsaber to his spine when most people keel over from having their hand lopped off. Poe knows it's stupid but god, if anyone can do it, it's Finn. This man, no, this _kid_ , saved Poe, saved the resistance, kriff, he saved the goddamn galaxy. In the space of just a few days, he defected from the Dark Side, got a name and a droid, wielded Luke Skywalker's lightsaber and destroyed the Star Killer. Poe knows all of this not from Finn himself, of course, too busy saving the universe, but from others. Mostly BB-8 if he's being honest. BB-8 is the only living thing Poe's talked to, other than General Leia, since he heard about Finn's injury. He hasn't even talked to the med wards yet, despite spending more time asleep at the foot of Finn's than in his own room.

Poe falls asleep near Finn's shins, drooling slightly on the sheets, and wakes up when the medical officers wander in every morning. It's been two weeks and he knows that his squadron can handle their missions without him, and he knows they'd probably appreciate his help, but he can't leave this miracle of a boy all alone. So he stays there.

One morning, instead of being woken by a sharp tap on his shoulder, the med officers' preferred method of moving him, he waken to a broad hand petting at his hair. He feels his chest get lighter, smile wider, when he looks up in the vibrant eyes of Finn. 

"Welcome to the world of the living, kid."

Finn makes an odd sound and Poe's about to call for help until he realises that the short wheezes he's hearing are laughter, not Finn's final hacking coughs.

"Glad to be back."

Finn's eyes dart around the room as he moves to sit up properly, years of conditioning telling him he shouldn't be laying here, vulnerable like this. Poe does actually call for help when Finn collapses back onto the bed with what was definitely a pained groan. Before he's whisked away from the bed so that Finn, the actual hero of the Resistance, can be treated, he hears Finn's groaned out question.

"Where's Rey?"

 

Poe starts going out on missions again that afternoon.


	2. Guns And Ships

Poe knows that it's ridiculous that he's so upset by Finn asking after Rey. God, he doesn't even know if Rey's alive or dead, doesn't know that she defeated Kylo Ren and saved Finn's life. He knows that it is ludicrous but hell, those eyes just glazed right over him, looking for this girl. So he lets himself be caught of in the energy of the rebels again, lets himself get pulled along to meeting with the general which, if he's honest, he's only half paying attention to. She says that it's a top priority mission, simple but important reconnaissance, and he nods along because all his missions are top priority, he's the best goddamn pilot they have. 

When they head towards the hangar bay, Poe keeps looking at his teammates, laughing with them, still riding the aftershocks of their victory. He definitely doesn't look at the med bay, closed and dark in the early morning. One of his teammate jokes about buying him a new jacket, to replace the one Finn took, as a congratulatory prize. 

"For our best pilot!", she calls, and echoes on the walls of the bay, silent in the morning light.

"I don't think I even hold that title, anymore.", he laughs. He cracks a self-deprecating smile and rummages in his X-Wing to find his helmet, completely missing the looks that the rest of his squadron share over his head.

When they take off, Poe definitely doesn't think about Finn. He knows he's awake now, and on the mend, and that all he wanted. _Really._

 

 

When Finn wakes up, jolted awake by a nightmare of sand and snow that swallowed him whole, the twin suns are already blazing through the thin tent walls. He gropes around with tired and stiff arms until he finds his jacket. Throwing it over his face, he closes his tired eyes in the shade it creates, pointedly ignoring its heat and how it reminds him of his nightmare. He falls asleep again, fitful bursts of darkness and light, until the sounds of the bustling community outside the walls become too loud.

Cries, normally of joy and jubilation, are sad and alarmed. He catches snippets of conversations, 'Tell the General" drifting in and out a few times. It's not until he hears a familiar name tossed around that he realises Poe isn't at the foot of his bed. He doesn't know why he expected Poe to be there, it was probably just coincidence Poe was there when he woke up. He tries hard to not dwell on it too much, instead trying to eavesdrop on the conversations in the world outside of the tent. That is, until BB-8 speeds through the flaps of the med tent, beeping frantically, followed by multiple humanoids carrying someone on a stretcher.

He catches a glimpse of her face, pale and bloodless, and he remembers her. She had winked at him after Poe clapped him on the shoulder, right before they went off into battle and Finn nearly failed everyone. 

"What- what happened?"

None of the medics pay him any heed, to busy in their work. A woman answers him, he thinks she might be the pilot's girlfriend. 

"Research and monitor mission went bad. The First Order were better armed than they expected. Most of the team went down, she managed to fly back." 

The woman's voice is tense and tight, her eyes red, but she manages to squeeze out a smile for him when she sees the way he's still clutching Poe's jacket to his chest.

"I'm sure Poe will come back, he is a great pilot."

He thinsk she was trying to be comforting, but her words send nothing but a spike of pain and worry into his gut.

 


	3. The Room Where It Happens

Finn is only officially discharged from the medical tent 3 days after Poe went missing. Rather, he was assigned rooming in what was previously Poe's room exactly 65 hours and 31 minutes after the elite squadron lost contact with the Resistance headquarters, but hey, who's counting?

Certainly not Finn.

Not the man who had measured his life in days spent on base, on toilets cleaned and hours logged, until one handsome pilot flipped his world. Not the man who began counting his days in stupidly dangerous situations survived and random bursts of courage. But Finn has been unconscious for weeks, and bedridden for most of the time he's been awake, so all he can do is count his time in minutes, hours, days.

It's somewhere in the midst of being assigned a wheelchair and proving his physical capacity on the base that Finn gets assigned to Poe's dorm. He doesn't even realise until the official for his integration into the base, a small, wizened creature with tired eyes, opens to door to his room. Instantly, he recognises the outfit Poe was wearing when he met him, still dirty and un-mended, lying on a pile of laundry. The room looks painfully lived in, the way that all homes do when home is all you have. The entire room speaks warm, all the scattered clothing spreading a sunrise of dusty brown and orange across the floor. There's even a poster of blown out diagram of an X-Wing on the wall, and Finn lets out a chuckle before he catches himself. 

He turns to his helper just as she thrusts a datapad towards him for him to sign. On it, it reads "Complete acquisition of Poe Dameron's inventory by Finn Dameron."

"He's not dead yet.", he says, helplessly. It's the easiest problem to address.

She eyes him carefully, and says "Sure, honey." in a tone that would be condescending from anyone less tired looking. As it is, she simply thrusts the datapad towards him again. 

"You would've been staying here anyway."

She says it like an undebateable fact, a truth of the universe as steadfast as the Force.

"I- He- Wait, why is my last name Dameron?"

She makes a scribbled note on her tablet that looks conspicuously like 'memory issues?', then turns to him again.

"It was what he wrote on your medical papers when we were signing up emergency contacts. Yours were him and Rey. She's gone, and also never had a proper room here anyway, so here we are. Look, can you sign this so that I can finish up here? There is still a rebellion going on out there."

Finn, numb, takes the pen and scrawls his name, the name Poe gave him and kriff, he really has taken all of Poe's things. When BB-8 rolls into the room and nudges at Finn's calf, all he can do is put his head in his hands.

He spends the next few days rolling around the camp, checking in with the General, discussing Stormtrooper strategies with intel operatives. He starts wearing Poe's old clothing, all of it too tight on the shoulders and hips. He explains it to himself as being economical, not wasting resources when he has a floor full of clothes that could wear. He doesn't even let himself think about the clothes as comfort items, scraps of fabric that tie one of the few people he knows back to home.

He doesn't cry.

On the day that Poe, and his other missing squad members are offically marked as missing, presumed dead, he stays awake until his eyelids start giving out on him, rubbing at the top of BB-8, hugging the one thing that Poe actually gave him, that's actually his, close to his chest. 

Letting out one final heaving sigh, followed by a few hiccuping breaths, Finn rubs at his tired, wet eyes with Poe's jacket.

He hears footsteps in the doorway and he's about to tell whoever it is to just leave him alone, when he hears the self-satisfied smug smile in the voice that calls out to him.

"That's not really what I meant that jacket for, when I gave it to you. You do know how jackets work, right buckethead?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the angst is strong in this one hmmm?


	4. Helpless

Finn's head whips around to stare at the man in his doorway. Poe gives a jaunty wave with his free arm, leaning heavily between the doorframe and what looks like a crutch made out of some scavenged plan segments.

Finn makes a strangled sound, a garbled mix between "Hi" and "I can explain" and "What?"

Then, Finn faints.

"Well", Poe says, "There goes my lift to the medbay."

He stands there for a few moments, watching the starlight through the window and the rise and fall of his friend's chest, before the sharp pain in his side spurs him into action. Using his makeshift crutch, he swing over to where Finn is slumped on the bed, and waves at BB-8.

"Hey buddy, do you know where Finn put his pain meds?"

He gets a string of worried beeps in response.

"Don't sass me. None of the medics will be at the medbay unless someone sends out a distress call, and I am not going issue a call for myself. "

Poe continues to talk while he rifles through the pockets of his -no, Finn's- jacket.

"I'm great and all, but that's pretty self aggrandizing, even for me. Yes! Found 'em."

Poe punches his free arm in the air, then hisses at the pain and lets himself fall heavily onto the thin mattress next to Finn, who he pushes into a more comfortable position. He takes a few of the med pills dry, and pats at BB-8's antenna.

"Goodnight, buddy."

 

When Fin wakes up, the first thing he notices is how much his back hurts. It's throbs and stings so much it clouds out all his senses for a while.

Only for a little while, though.

It's a few seconds before he registers how warm his blanket is, then the warm breath on the back of his neck, and the arm draped loosely around him, and the fingers clenched tight in the leather of his jacket and then, finally, how his blanket is, in fact, not a blanket but a human. _Poe._

Lastly, he notices that the whirring and beeping in the room is louder than usual, noisier and deeper than the kind of white noise he's accustomed to tuning BB-8 out to. He pries his eyes open, stuck together with sleep and what is definitely not dried tears, to see the chasse of a med-droid in front of his bed. 

The big, simple, smiling face on its display screen, supposedly comforting, winks at him. 

He groans and tries to shift his face away from it. It continues scanning him anyway. 

He can feel when Poe wakes up, wiry arms tightening around him. He feels, more than hears, the tired voice behind him ask, "Whazzup? What time is it?"

"It is 0640 hours. You were presumed killed in action, but now that you have returned you must be admitted into our care so that we may ascertain your health and safety. Then you have a debrief with General Organa."

 _Kriff,_ Finn thinks _, it even sounds like it's smiling._

"Please come with me. Your partner may follow you, but I must return you to our care unit as quickly as possible. It appears you are badly burnt, and have sustained-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know what's happened to me. Let's go so you can dunk me in some bacta, whatever will cheer you up."

Poe softly nudges Finn up into a sitting position and out of the way so that he can swing himself into the stretcher that the bot just produced out of Force knows where. His legs dangle of the end of it, and swing whenever the droid moves, swaying like a happy child on a swing. This is not endearing to Finn at all.

"You better come sit by my bed in the med prison, Finn. Return the favour, and all that.", Poe calls as he is wheeled out of the door.

"Okay." Finn manages to respond, and Poe beams, looking far too happy for a man in a med-droid stretcher.

"Farewell. When you come to visit [DESIGNATION: POE DAMERON] in our wards,you should refill your pain med prescription. Droid MBW23 will assist you in that process. Have a nice day!"

Finn is going to have a stern word with whoever designed the voicing units on these bots, they're _insufferable_. He slides into his own wheelchair, and starts down the corridor after them anyway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this makes less sense than usual, it's 3am.


	5. Stay Alive (Reprise)

Despite Poe seeming fine, cheery even, when he'd been hustled out of Finn's- no, Poe's- no, their room that morning, it turned out he was not fine. In fact, he was far, far less than fine and Finn was going to kriffing kill him if he dies.

Blocking the entrance to Poe's med ward room, however, is one of the staffers, a Hutt, assigned to record keeping and inventory organisation, and it won't stop droning on, and on, and on, about the transferral of Poe's estate now that he is alive, and how that affects rooming, and eventually Finn simply tries to push past it. He can see a dark shock of hair, and a rogueish grin, on the pillow through the gap in the door and his chest tightens when he sees Poe's face drain of colour. 

Finn starts to bodily battle with the large alien keeping him from Poe. It easily blocks him out, not by strength, but by its sheer mass moving to block the doorway.

"Come on!", Finn cries, "I just want to make sure he's alright!"

"Oh." It says, moving slightly out of his way. "I suppose it is reasonable that you are allowed to visit your husband in this time of distress. That is a typical human allowance, I am told."

It occurs to Finn, for a split-second, that he doesn't know what a 'husband' is. He's certainly never heard of one before. It's probably some particular rank designation in the Resistance, he decides, but if it's going to get him to Poe quicker, he'll go with it.

"Yeah? Yeah! C'mon, just let me see Poe."

It shifts slightly more to the side, and waggles its datapad at him in a menacing 'I'll-be-back' fashion. He doesn't even notice, not letting it have even a second to reconsider before he squeezes past and tumbles into the room.

One of the wheels on Finn's wheelchair skids across the floor when he slides in, leaving a black streak across the already stained floor. He pointedly ignores the different coloured blood stains on the floor, mixed in with dirt and the other stains of a Resistance medward because it looks like none of that came from Poe and is therefore not nearly as important as his friend, alive and grinning at him from his cot.

They lock eyes and Finn beams, smile slipping a little when he notices that Poe's own grin is definitely strained and his fingers, hands fidgety with uselessness, are toying with the bedsheets.

A loud cough jerks their stares away from each other, towards the General. 

"Poe- Commander Dameron will soon be released from the Ward, Finn. Is there something you needed more urgently?"

"I just wanted to see that he was alright, General."

Behind the General, Finn can see a medical officer moving around, proffering Poe pads to sign and boxes to tick. It chimes in, "All that is needed is rooming, and perhaps a monitor, and Dameron will be free to go."

Behind him, Finn can feel the eyes of the Hutt officer on the back of it's neck. It calls out before the General can respond.

"Surely he will return to rooming with his husband? He would be an adequate monitor, of course."

Finn can see a quick flash of emotion across the General's carefully schooled face, before the calmness returns.

'What husband would that be, Aruuka?"

He can feel the Hutt's wet finger push against the back of his jacket, forcing his chair to squeak further into the room.

"Finn Dameron, of course."

The General flicks her eyes towards him, and he feels small and piercingly inspected, until she turns on her heel to face Poe's bed again. They have a quick, hushed conversation, Poe's hands jerking up in defence and confusion a few times, before they turn back.

"Very well", the General says, "Finn, please take your husband back to your room."

Finn can feel Poe's curious eyes on him as he approaches, and signs all the datapads they thrust at him, but he has spent far too much time in cots and under surveillance recently, enough for a lifetime, so as soon as the General gives him an approving nod, he grabs at Poe's hand and starts to pull his friend out of the ward.

They don't talk on the way back to their room, the early morning quiet almost too serene to break, but after a few corners, Poe pulls his hand out of Finn's. He feels sad immediately, and he pulls his hand quickly into the recesses of his jacket, because of the cold of course, not that he felt too awkward to leave it hanging.

Finn feels his heart lift again, and he berates himself for acting like a child, when Poe grabs onto his wheelchair handles instead, moving them back to the room faster.

 

"So", Poe says, when they arrive back inside the room, Poe's posters and keepsakes still in perfect position, "When did I get a husband?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all the very nice comments and things! You're all lovely.  
> I'll be honest, we've hit the point where my original plot notes just read "idk man, kiss kiss smooch smooch hurt/comfort"


	6. Burn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only a lil extra chapter here.

"Uh," Finn says.

Poe parks him inside the room and closes the door and starts changing out of his flight suit. Finn stares at the exposed skin, taut and soft and bruised, and he remembers Poe is hurt, and his friend and looks away.

"Uh," Finn begins again, "I don't know what a husband is."

He can hear Poe's motions stutter, and then stop, shirt dangling from his fingertips as he slowly turns on his heel.

"What."

"What?"

"What do you mean you don't _know_ what a husband is, apparently you _became_ my husband in my absence. Was it for my room and my stuff? That's a pretty sweet deal I guess-"

"Whatever a husband is, I only heard about it when I tried to follow you and the med droid! Some Hutt officer was blabbering on about items and money and I just wanted to see you. It said you were my husband and it seemed like it was going to let me in. I saw the opportunity and I took it."

Poe starts giggling. 

"This is because of the name thing, isn't it?"

His laughter turns into hearty chuckles, and tears start to squeeze out of his eyes.

"Oh Force no, I can't believe Rey convinced me to do that. She's going to have a fit when she finds out we're husbands."

 Clutching his sides, Poe flops onto the bed comically, kicking his legs out as he wheezes down from his laughter.

"Goodness, does that mean Rey is my wife too? Is she our wife? Do I have to explain to Leia that I accidentally got a husband and wife without telling her?"

Finn stares at him, his friend he thought was dead for days, wheezing with laughter and rolling around on their bed.

Poe stills for a moment, and sinks further into the bed.

"It's good to have a bed again, y'know."

Finn rolls further into the room and starts getting changed for bed, but stays silent.

"It wasn't nice, the trip back. It was dark and lonely and all I wanted was y- was to come home."

 

Proffering his wrists to Poe, Finn motions to be pulled onto the bed next to Poe. After a bit of jostling, and wincing at pulled bruises, they lie there together. Finn shifts his hand until their fingers brush together, and rolls their shoulders closer. It's as close as he can get to a hug without twisting his newly healing spine. Poe's face has drawn closed, lips thin and tight, eyes distant. He jerks when their fingers touch, but relaxes again.

"For the record, I still don't know what a husband is. Or a wife, for that matter.", Finn whispers into the hazy light of the morning. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Poe's lips spread into a jagged smile. His heart thumps in his chest when Poe shifts onto his side to look him in the eyes, and he can see the brightness and joy in them.

"When a being and a being love each other very, very much-", Poe begins, and it sounds like he's mocking someone, or something. He giggles softly at his own joke, but begins to explain more seriously when he sees the hurt in Finn's eyes, that fear that he's being mocked. 

"It's something people in relationships do. It's like a statement of their love, sometimes people exchange matching rings, sometimes they start sharing a last name. That's probably what confused Aruuka, you having the last name Dameron. You needed one for your medical forms, for emergency contacts and your Resistance registration, so I lent you mine."

Finn moves to look at the ceiling again, knowing, somehow, that what he's about to admit is embarrassing. 

"I've never loved anyone, I don't even think I know what that is."

Poe stares at the side of Finn's face in silence, and Finn can feel a light touch at his cheek that he think might be Poe's free hand. It could also be tears. He doesn't check.

"We weren't allowed connections in the First Order. We were allowed nicknames, kind of. It gets a bit hard to remember everyone's number after a while. I had a friend, Slip, and maybe I loved him. I don't know, maybe all I felt was friendship, what would I know. I was told off by Captain Phasma for trying to help him all the time. I just wanted him to do okay, to do well, even. That's how he got the name Slip, because he was always slippingbehind. I just- I just wanted him to be happier."

Finn pauses then, and takes a slow, shuddering breath inwards.

"He died. On Jakku."

Finn hears Poe's soft gasp and turns, slowly and carefully so as to not pull his stitches, onto his side. Now that they're facing each other, he can see that the soft warmth on his face was indeed Poe's hand, cupping his cheek.

"I thought you died too. On Jakku."

In the dim light he can see Poe's teeth shine when he tries to smile.

"You've gotta have more faith in me, kid. I'm the Resistance's best pilot, I'm kind of a big deal."

Finn's face remains stoic and Poe watches the way he blinks slowly, lashes wet. He tries not to think about the last time he saw Finn's face this calm, still and lifeless in a confining cot.

"I thought you were dead again, when your X-Wing fell. I was sure of it. I watched it burn, Poe, I watched you burn."

If this were a movie, Poe would be able to see the glitchy video recording of his ship in Finn's eye, fusellage smoking and burning, spiralling down, down, down onto the planet surface out of sight. But this isn't a movie and all he can see is his own sad reflection in the mirror shine of wet tears. 

Force help him, Poe wants to kiss him, to wipe away the pain. 

He can't tell what Finn is thinking.

He doesn't kiss him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> forewarning, next chapter will be reasonably sad and will feature panic attacks and hallucinations. But also cute stuff!


	7. The Story Of Tonight

They lie there together, both squeezed into the single tiny bed in their room, Poe's arm stretched between them. They fall asleep eventually, Finn first, wet eyelashes fluttering as he leans into the broad warmth of Poe's hand. Poe watches the rise and fall of his chest, counting his beaths in the midday light. He can't help but feel that he should be out in the hangar with the troops, they need him, as a symbol, to be alive andwell. He can't seem to tear himself away from Finn though, and the last thought he has before finally falling into the darkness of sleep is that they'll need to get seperate rooms soon, or else he'll lose every night of sleep to watching the moonlight drift over Finn's cheekbones.

Finn dreams a dreamless sleep. It's the most peaceful period of unconsciousness he's had since Poe's ship went down, that is until he's woken up by strangled screaming.

Strangled screaming very, very close to his ear.

 Poe's strangled screaming, hot breath and bared teeth pressed to the back of his neck _._

Jolted awake, he grapples against Poe's arms, simultaneously clutching at his worn leather jacket to pull him closer and push him further away. He manages to pin Poe's arms down at his sides with his knees, Finn straddling across the pilot's chest, frantically trying to talk to him, to wake him up. Pinning his arms down only serves to distress Poe more, eyes flickering frantically behind his closed lids, his murmured chants of "No, no, no, Finn, no" growing louder. Finn has enough time to wonder at the way Poe's lips spit out his name like a curse before Poe, with a sudden burst of strength, pushes up at Finn, cracking their foreheads together and rolling the both of them off the bed.

Poe lands on top of Finn with a loud grunt and his eyes fly open, hazy but still wide with fear.

"Hey, no, it's me Poe."

"Finn?" Poe asks, eye drifting from a spot above his shoulder to Finn's face.

"Finn, you're alive? Thank the force, I thought you were dead." Poe whispers as he clutches at Finn's jacket. "Kriff, you're bleeding. Who hurt you?"

Poe raises his fingertips to press at the red trickling down the bridge of Finn's nose, quickly pulling his hand back when he hisses in pain.

"No-one but you, buddy. Mind getting off my chest? Kind of need that to breathe and all."

Poe breathes out apologies as rolls off onto the floor besode Finn, pulling at his arms to raise him into a sitting position. His hands linger a little too long on each movement, pressing into his flesh, as though to check that Finn is really there, wincing with pain amongst the piles of clothes on their floor.

"So," Finn starts, after Poe scrabbles at the table to fetch the pain reliever pills and some tissues, "What was with that dream?"

Poe carefully avoids his gaze when he answers, instead pretending that the tiny window is the most important thing in the world.

"You know how they said I'd need a monitor, yesterday? The, um, the time that I spent in the Star Killer has left me in pretty bad shape."

Poe chuckles slightly when Finn's hands move to pat at his torso, skin starkly dark against Poe's thin white undershirt, checking for these mysteriously well hidden injuries.

"No, bad shape up here." Poe says, gesturing at his head, hair still stuck to his scalp with sweat.

Finn hums in mixed agreement and question, and shifts back to lean his aching spine against the base of the bed, giving Poe more room.

"They ever teach you about mental illness when you were a proper buckethead?"

"Hmm? No. If you couldn't do your work, physical or otherwise, you were useless and that was that. But I'm learning that the Resistance thinks differently about these sorts of things." Finn answers, gesturing at his own back, "Besides, I'd never really been sure what attraction was until I left the base, so who am I to judge on what's normal."

Poe nods in agreement as he moves over to lean next to Finn, the warmth of his arm grounding him.

"I get really, really awful dreams. That's why they want me to have a monitor, some of the dreams are so real that I could potentially badly hurt myself or others." Poe explains, lifting the tissues to Finn's worried brow, opting to hold them there rather than pass them over. "Sometimes the dreams come when I'm awake. That's- that's what went wrong for me on that last trip. There were more troopers than we were expecting, by far. When one of them shot out a turbine on my plane, when I started falling, the stress and fear triggered something in my mind, and I couldn't tell whether anything was real or just Ren rummaging around in my brain again."

Finn grips his wrists, and Poe realises that he's started to curl up into a ball again, still steadfastly looking away from Finn.

"Hey," Finn says, fingers digging into his skin, comforting shackles around his wrists, "I'm here. I'm real. It's okay."

Poe looks small, lithe muscles drawing him in and making him seem more fragile and tiny, when he says "I dreamed that you died."

"Oh."

Poe tries to pull his wrists away, ears burning with the admission that some silly dream about sand and a mask and a missing boy scared him so much, when Finn bundles him into a hug instead. Poe relaxes quickly, listening to Finn's thumping heart beat. He buries his face in Finn's shoulder and tries to calm his breathing, noticing instead that his jacket now smells almost entirely of Finn.

They sit there for a long moment, Finn's chin resting on Poe's forehead, before Finn is pulling away to look Poe in the eyes and admit, "I thought about running away, when you died. The second time, I mean. I tried to run away the first time, and I'm thankful I didn't, but when your X-Wing went down I wanted to pick back up where I left off. I was going to fly out to the outer rim, or pay someone to fly me out, and I was going to run away."

"Why didn't you?"

"I thought you would come back."

Poe's eyes shine when he grins and Force help him, Finn wants to kiss him.

So he does.

Poe let's out a quiet gasp and it sounds like a thunderclap in Finn's ears, loud in the silent room. He relaxes instantly, licking into Finn's mouth before pulling away again.

"What was that you said about love earlier?"

Finn stares at him in confusion, eyes tinged with sadness.

"About not feeling love until you left the base? Wasn't that about Rey?"

"What? No, not really. Unless you sibling love, because I guess that's more of what I have with her."

Poe gazes at him with skepticism.

"Love for your sibling is a thing, right? The General said that that was a different kind of love, between a family."

"The General probably isn't the best judge on siblings and love. But you're sure you don't love Rey romantically?"

"Pretty sure. Bit soon for 'love' anyway, right?"

"Who then?", Poe asks, frantically rifling through people on the base in his head. "Is it Pava? Sorry man, pretty sure Rey is more her type-"

Finn looks at him, his face full of confusion. He stares pointedly at where Poe is still running his teeth over his own lip.

"Oh."

Finn laughs quietly, drawing further away from Poe, scared that he's screwed it all up.

"You gave me my first name, and all your stuff, and your jacket, and my first kiss and you still don't get it."

A wide grin spreads across Poe's face, and despite the tear tracks on his face and his sweat sticky hair, it's the most beautiful Finn has ever seen him.

"Yeah well, we'll see how many firsts I get."

Poe leans in again, and Finn doesn't even mind the stupid smirk he has on his face.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year.


End file.
